Clinical vs. Lay Hypnosis: A Hopeless Battle?
An Editorial by Steve K.D. Eichel, Ph.D.
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Nobody knows how many lay people have received training in hypnosis, and how a many of those are practicing lay hypnotists. NGH claims thousands of certified members. It is safe to assume that there are several thousand more who have been trained/certified by other lay hypnotist organizations.

I do not know how many patients or clients have paid for the services of lay hypnotists over the past decade or so, but it is probably safe to assume they number well into the tens of thousands. At worst, this means thousands have received incompetent, or treatment of at least dubious value. Certainly, lay hypnotists have (wrongly, according to organized clinical hypnosis) cut into practices (and incomes) of clinical hypnotists.

Conflicting Paradigms After examining the literature, brochures, and training protocols of the NGH, ABH, and ACHE (as well as those of ASCH and SCEH), I found two fundamental--and defining--differences that distinguish the paradigms of hypnosis espoused by lay vs. clinical hypnotists. Commitment to science. Clinical hypnosis is predicated on rigorous scientific investigation. SCEH and ASCH distinguish between "soft science" (e.g., case studies, non-experimental research) and "hard science" (e.g., quasi- and "true" experimental research), and shares the bias of all formal sciences that the latter is more valid than the former. Lay hypnosis does not make this distinction.

There is a very clear preponderance of uncontrolled anecdotal studies in the lay hypnosis articles I have read. In fact, "hard" research is almost entirely missing from this literature, and in some cases is even denigrated. The exception (in my limited reading) has been when hard research appears to support the aims and purposes of lay hypnosis (e.g., I found several references to NIH's recent positive review of hypnosis as a valuable adjunct to medical treatment of cancer and pain), as a distinct profession.

The other difference between lay and clinical hypnotists is more politically volatile. ASCH and SCEH are quite adamant in their belief that hypnosis is a valuable clinical activity but does not by itself constitute treatment. Lay hypnotists vehemently disagree. They view hypnosis as a treatment that can be used in addition to, but is distinct from, other medical and/or psychological treatments; consequently, hypnosis is viewed as a distinct profession. The ABH brochure, for example, states that among its purposes are "to promote the recognition of hypnosis as a viable therapeutic modality" and "to promote the recognition of hypnotherapy as a separate/distinct profession" (American Board of Hypnotherapy, 1994). Next